Currently reading Evans' trilogy on the 3rd Reich. Talk about the dominoes falling the right way for the National Socialists - it's no wonder ol' Adolf thought his reign was all about destiny. Although he and his boys did make some pretty clever political maneouvers in the late 20s/early 30s and they nailed the propaganda part.

So when are the Rightwingers going to design the 21st century Volkswagen(affordable peoples car) and concrete their spot in history that isn't about hating all those who are different from them?

/What? No claims from the Jewish lobby on how current U.S. rightwingers books are as dangerous as the worst genocidal manics on this Earth.//Or how Israel is the exact same as the Third Reich, that they claim to hate, as they slaughter and torture the people of Palestine.///Yummy popcorn

You mean to tell me that the guy whose paintings were so crap that an austrian art school rejected him might also be incredibly terrible when it comes to other creative endeavors, like writing!? YOU DON'T SAY!

On a slightly related topic, I read Marx's Communist Manifesto last year for the first time.

I was a bit surprised that many of the issues it addressed are still relevant today. Unskilled labor earning nearly nothing, with skilled labor being rendered unskilled due to mechanization and automation, Company (corporate) owners earning exorbitant amounts on the backs of the workers.

And that argument about Marx wanting abolition of private property ownership? The definition of private property has changed. He wasn't talking about your house, he was talking about corporate ownership of businesses. He said that the government, and therefore the citizens, should own the businesses and all benefit from its profits.

"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."

sheep snorter:So when are the Rightwingers going to design the 21st century Volkswagen(affordable peoples car) and concrete their spot in history that isn't about hating all those who are different from them?

/What? No claims from the Jewish lobby on how current U.S. rightwingers books are as dangerous as the worst genocidal manics on this Earth.//Or how Israel is the exact same as the Third Reich, that they claim to hate, as they slaughter and torture the people of Palestine.///Yummy popcorn

Earguy:On a slightly related topic, I read Marx's Communist Manifesto last year for the first time.

I was a bit surprised that many of the issues it addressed are still relevant today. Unskilled labor earning nearly nothing, with skilled labor being rendered unskilled due to mechanization and automation, Company (corporate) owners earning exorbitant amounts on the backs of the workers.

And that argument about Marx wanting abolition of private property ownership? The definition of private property has changed. He wasn't talking about your house, he was talking about corporate ownership of businesses. He said that the government, and therefore the citizens, should own the businesses and all benefit from its profits.

While I agree in theory the problem is that the past century has proved that the State is no better at distributing wealth than a capitalist system and is significantly worse at producing it. The other problem is that even in a democratic system the State and the People are two separate entities with different goals. A much more workable and reasonable scenario is to have ownership of a company held directly by the employees of that company. That way they still have a vested interest in its success, they control the means of production, and you don't undermine the efficiency of the capitalist system. There are several large very successful companies in the US based on that idea.

Earguy:And that argument about Marx wanting abolition of private property ownership? The definition of private property has changed. He wasn't talking about your house, he was talking about corporate ownership of businesses. He said that the government, and therefore the citizens, should own the businesses and all benefit from its profits.

The problem then is you transfer control from one oligarchy to another. One that doesn't have any real restraints on its power.

Say a corporation steps way out of line. Happens all the time. Workers can go on strike, and in extreme cases, government can (though doesn't always) step in. People can sue the corporations, and they can (though not invariably) win painful awards that make corporations change their behavior.

Government, though, has more power than any corporation could ever hope to attain. And if it wants, it can make things like worker strikes illegal, and it can outlaw lawsuits against itself.

So concentrating both political *AND* economic power solely in the hands of the government is a real recipe for disaster, whether or not your allowed to own, say, a house and personal effects.

I'm not saying that the separation of the two is a perfect system: It's not. But it's less dangerous than concentrating all that power into one entity.

Now, you'll argue that "The people can change the government through their votes!", And that's true. Until your job at the factory depends on you voting for the right people. Because the government is also your employer.

Just imagine your worst nightmare of a President/Congress having complete control over all manufacturing, including the manufacturing of voting machines...

If you enjoyed reading the Communist Manifesto, I would suggest you read The State and Revolution by Lenin. I think it would help a lot of you better understand what a worker's state is and how it functions.

ArkPanda:I tried to read it one time in high school for a book report. I was being a prick and reasoned that since it was in the school library they had to accept it. I don't think I made it halfway through.

That sounds like when I had to do my Senior Paper on a "famous person". I chose Charles Manson, you could smell the gears grinding in my teacher's head, but she reasoned it out correctly that Manson was "famous", so I was complying. I must have written a good paper, I turned it in a week late, handwritten, and about a page short and still got a B+.

Currently reading Evans' trilogy on the 3rd Reich. Talk about the dominoes falling the right way for the National Socialists - it's no wonder ol' Adolf thought his reign was all about destiny. Although he and his boys did make some pretty clever political maneouvers in the late 20s/early 30s and they nailed the propaganda part.

vharshyde:You mean to tell me that the guy whose paintings were so crap that an austrian art school rejected him might also be incredibly terrible when it comes to other creative endeavors, like writing!? YOU DON'T SAY!

To The Escape Zeppelin!:Earguy: On a slightly related topic, I read Marx's Communist Manifesto last year for the first time.

I was a bit surprised that many of the issues it addressed are still relevant today. Unskilled labor earning nearly nothing, with skilled labor being rendered unskilled due to mechanization and automation, Company (corporate) owners earning exorbitant amounts on the backs of the workers.

And that argument about Marx wanting abolition of private property ownership? The definition of private property has changed. He wasn't talking about your house, he was talking about corporate ownership of businesses. He said that the government, and therefore the citizens, should own the businesses and all benefit from its profits.

While I agree in theory the problem is that the past century has proved that the State is no better at distributing wealth than a capitalist system and is significantly worse at producing it. The other problem is that even in a democratic system the State and the People are two separate entities with different goals. A much more workable and reasonable scenario is to have ownership of a company held directly by the employees of that company. That way they still have a vested interest in its success, they control the means of production, and you don't undermine the efficiency of the capitalist system. There are several large very successful companies in the US based on that idea.

Employee owned businesses aren't impossible in the capitalist system, it just turns out they aren't very good compared to investor owned corporations. Google Lusty Lady San Francisco and you'll see that the employees had great setups but it was a lousy environment for the customers. UAW and the big three were doing something similar. The UAW pensions and alot of the employees were heavily invested in the companies when they went bankrupt. Turns out that union negotiators have an incentive to maximize the next contract and screw the long term consequences, otherwise the pensions wouldn't have been allowed to get so bad and the work rules would have been adjusted. The other problem is that your assuming the workforce is immobile. A mobile workforce has every bit as much incentive to profiteer today and move on as an 80's hedge fund manager.

In a lot of ways town/county governments are like employee owned businesses too. The employees vote and donate heavily to whomever is going to give them the best labor contract and the AFSCME is huge in local elections. Well that hasn't worked out so well as you can see in the wave of municipal bankruptcies going on.

Once something scales beyond a local family owned bakery investor owners tend to be the best at maximizing growth for the company and the society. Investor owned gives an incentive to succeed and provide products people want at prices they want to pay. Free markets mean that if the investor gets lazy or greedy competitors can form to topple them. In this it's a self regulating system to clean out the scrub brush of the economy.